Noises On: A Hurt/Comfort Story
by Blue Fenix
Summary: Life is rough when you're tragic and fictional. But plenty of people want to help Phileas with this problem.


Noises On: A Hurt/Comfort Story

Noises On: A Hurt/Comfort Story

Warnings: implied het, implied slash, angst, metafiction

Disclaimers: all parodies are general to the way fandoms and shows do things.

The _Aurora_ floated majestically against a sunset of golden CGI clouds, cleverly processed post-production to look like film. Inside the cabin -- which in defiance of all laws of aerodynamics, held as much interior room as a suburban house in a good school district -- the Foggs, Jules Verne, and Passepartout were celebrating their latest victory.

The fight had been a long and hard one. At one point, a cast member had been dangled off a precipice in exactly the manner best calculated to give Phileas Fogg guilty flashbacks about his brother's death. Nonetheless, they had triumphed. The League of Darkness had been prevented from completing its latest coup -- the hiring of a publicist who, if he had joined them, would surely have had them change their name to Citizens For Tax Relief and ensured their ultimate world conquest. 

Everyone was gathered around a small, beautifully inlaid wooden table toasting each other with small glasses of sherry. Only Phileas had sustained any injury in their battles. He had a small white bandage at one temple, which rather set off the gray in his hair. He had also wrenched one arm and was wearing it in a sling. The drape of white fabric, plus the incredibly well tailored period costume, made him look simultaneously thinner and more broad-shouldered than he'd been during the run of Robin of Sherwood. 

"It's been a long day," Phileas said, setting down his sherry glass and averting his eyes toward the floor like Edmund Keene's understudy. "If you'll excuse me, I think I'll turn in. I'd like to be alone for a while." He exited through a door to another standing set. He gathered up a bottle of whisky, a bottle of brandy, and a bottle of sherry as he passed the sideboard; everyone affected not to notice. 

Passepartout, remembering Victorian class distinctions, bounced out of his seat a moment later and gathered the other sherry glasses onto a small tray. "Is getting back to work," he said. "You settling back to do quiet evening of upper class things; I wash the dishes. Is my duty." He headed toward the same door.

"Just a minute," Rebecca said sharply. "The galley's the other way ... I'm pretty sure. What exactly are you up to?"

"Duty," Passepartout protested. "I wait outside master's door ... first sign of the nightmares with the cold sweats and screaming and sitting bolt upright in bed, I take steps. Very attached to master."

"_You_ take steps?" Rebecca snapped back. "Who's the true love around here? As a female lead with an actual personality, I get first crack at him. And as a redhead, I'll have you know that I'm incredibly passionate."

"You're both wrong," said Jules. The other two jumped a little, having forgotten he was there. "I mean, look at the setup. I'm young, I'm good looking, and it _is_ my show."

"Bloody hell, it can't be all of us," Rebecca said forcefully. "Has anybody got a deck of cards?"

"Devoted comedic manservant is recognized archetype," Passepartout insisted. "And subordinate role is inherently conducive to a submissive attitude toward alpha-male authority figure. Is reading Desmond Morris."

"Bugger Desmond Morris," Rebecca said figuratively. "I'm the orphaned ward taken into a genteel household and raised alongside the heir to the fortune -- of course I get him. Ask Jane Austen. Ask Barbara Cartland."

"He swept me off my feet in our very first scene together," Jules said wistfully. "It was a fireman's carry. And he slapped me around, too -- and he was really, really guilty about it afterward."

"Don't flatter yourself," Rebecca snapped. "Phileas can work up to really, really guilty if he's ten minutes late for dinner."

Passepartout, still holding his tray, was looking longingly toward the door at stage left. "Ah, poor tormented master," he crooned. "I hope your alright."

Rebecca sprang to her feet with a shriek of rage. "You're!" she shouted. "Two words, a contraction for you are! All right, two separate words! Say it over and do it right!" She drew out a Glock Model 17 and leveled it at the manservant's head.

"Am never getting hang of Microsoft Word grammar checker," Passepartout said defensively. "And alright is legitimate variant spelling; used in subtitles on Babylon 5."

"As long as we're beta reading," Jules put in mildly, "that's an anachronistic weapon."

Rebecca turned on him with a look like Clint Eastwood caught in rush-hour traffic. Jules hastily held up his hands. "But ... but it's a lot like something experimental that Passepartout and I have been building." The gun in Rebecca's hands acquired a longer barrel, some decorative brass fittings, and a small pressure gauge. "Sheesh," Jules muttered under his breath. "You've really got a dominatrix streak since that leather corset outfit."

Rebecca turned on him again. Fortunately, at that moment a loud engine noise came up from the outside windows. "Hello!" called a woman's voice. "Looking for the airship _Aurora_!"

Jules Verne gratefully ran over to the open windows. A small, primitive biplane was pacing them a few feet away, its single pilot a woman in a form-fitting leather suit. "Hi there!" Jules grinned and waved.

"Help out a fellow American? I'm looking for Phileas Fogg!" the girl shouted.

"No, really, I'm French! Can't you tell? I live in Paris! I drink wine in cafes and date older women!" Jules said quickly. "And it's my show. What do you need?" The other two, equally curious, had come up behind him.

The female pilot took off her helmet and goggles. She had raven black hair and bright blue eyes, like Pierce Brosnan only with breasts. "I need Mr. Fogg's help," she called. "My name is Wright, Mary Sue Wright -- it's about my two younger brothers."

Jules winced in pain. "That's really anachronistic."

Rebecca gave the woman a mean look. "I'll handle all the strong female role modeling that's required around here."

Passepartout broke the aileron off the wing closest to them. "We don't need no steenking guest stars." The small plane lurched out of control, spinning away out of sight.

The three of them turned back into the cabin with a feeling of a shared job well done. "That's all we need," Rebecca muttered. "Now, where were we? Phileas. He's lonely, he's hurting, he needs the healing only a loving human touch can provide ... what the hell was that?" Muffled voices -- not one, but several -- were coming through the wall from the adjoining room.

"Multiple personality disorder!" Passepartout moaned.

"Assassins have sneaked -- snuck -- sneaked aboard the ship!" said Rebecca.

"It's ..." Jules paused, unable to join in, and looked embarrassed. "It's my show." 

The three of them moved as one character into the small study/library which separated the salon from Fogg's room. Passepartout gasped and pointed at the floor. "The liquor bottles!" There were three of them, scattered haphazardly in a corner. "They're all unopened!"

Rebecca crossed to a small desk. "Look at this," she said. "A razor-sharp paper knife of a curious Oriental design, one of his dead brother's most prized possessions -- and it hasn't got _any_ faint traces of fresh blood on it."

"What the hell?" Jules asked. The voices in Fogg's room were still going on, louder now. Then came a muffled explosion and a burst of loud, tinny music.

Rebecca, being closest, got through the door first. The other two were right behind her. Phileas' room was dimly lit by an oil lamp beside the bed. In a second she was able to make out Phileas himself, slumped back on the floor on the far side of the bed with a blank look in his eyes. An eerie, pale light played over his vacant features. "My love!" she cried out.

Fogg gave a guilty start and sat up. He was leaning against the wall with a pillow from the bed propped behind him, and he'd kicked his shoes off. "I was just ... that is ... oh, the memories." He looked downcast.

"What on earth are you doing?" Rebecca came around the end of the bed, and saw it. "You bastard." Fogg had cut a hole in the wall of his cabin, giving an uninterrupted view of the green screens outside. "Black Scorpion" was on. 

"I just wanted a bit of a break," Fogg said defensively. "You don't know what it's like. I'll be Byronic and brooding and suicidal tomorrow, I promise. I've got emotional injuries you haven't even seen yet."

"Then how is explaining _this_?" said Passepartout, now standing beside the bed, with the hurt eyes of a cocker spaniel. He held out a prescription bottle. The label read "Phileas Fogg, one capsule per a.m. as directed," and the final, betraying word "Prozac."

"Yeah," said Jules. He held up a much-thumbed paperback, "Nurturing Your Inner Child."

"It's bloody boring having to be morose and somber all the time," Fogg snapped back. "If we're going to be so particular about continuity, why is it that he has broken-English sentence structure even when he's speaking French?"

Passepartout, much offended, drew himself rigidly upright. "I see. If master taking that attitude, is not needing this kind of subtext. Can get into fan fiction other ways." He drew Jules aside. "Is your show, yes? Should be getting more attention. Am thinking, displacement activity. Two lost souls drawn together, not is thinking of each other but both of _same_ person they fantasize about. Is ever seeing 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?'"

"Okay," Jules said with enthusiasm. "That sounds angsty." The two men began walking toward the door. "Who's on top?" It closed behind them.

Rebecca sighed, and crossed her arms. "I really should beat you up for this." No spark of interest. Phileas was watching the hole in the wall again. She shook her head and sat down on the floor next to him. "What's going on?"

"I'm not sure. Something about explosions. That one," Phileas pointed at a woman in a black rubber bustiere and high boots, "is fighting that one." A woman in a red rubber bustiere and high boots.

"And you really like this?"

"Well ... 'Farscape' comes on in about forty-five minutes." Phileas smiled winningly and offered her an open plastic bag. "Doritos? Ranch style."

"Too fattening, thanks."

"I don't see how they could be." Phileas crunched one. "I don't think I've gained a pound in fifteen years, and I eat them."

"I've got a gun," snarled Rebecca, who was wearing a whalebone corset. "Don't press your luck."


End file.
